Bay woman's brush with death

Michael Dougan, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, March 2, 1999

1999-03-02 04:00:00 PDT UGANDA -- Linda Adams of Alamo loves animals and will travel the globe to find them. In the past few years, she has seen polar bears in Manitoba, baby seals on the St. Lawrence Estuary of Newfoundland, turtles on the Galapagos Islands and kangaroos in Australia.

Next on her list was the lowland mountain gorillas of Uganda. That's where it all went wrong.

While tracking the elusive primates in Bwindi National Park Monday, Adams, 52, was one of 31 foreign tourists abducted by an armed band of Rwandan rebels. Eight of the group, including two Americans, died Tuesday when Ugandan soldiers attempted a rescue and exchanged fire with the Hutu rebels. Other reports indicated the victims were hacked to death with machetes by the rebels.

Adams wasn't there. She had escaped during the initial moments of the abduction by feigning ill health.

As the group was led by captors up a path, "I pretended I couldn't breathe, and the guide who was with us told (the rebels') general . . . I had an asthma attack," she said in Uganda.

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Adams stopped beside the path to let other group members pass. "When the rebel leader was out of sight, I dived into the bush and ran back the way we had come," she said.

Survivor phones home

Later that day, Adams called her parents, Jack and Mary Adams of Suisun City, to report her latest adventure.

"She was almost hysterical," said Jack Adams. "She was nervous and high-strung, so we only spoke for a second or two."

He said his daughter is on her way back to the Bay Area, via Frankfurt, Germany, and Chicago. She will arrive Wednesday.

Adams' parents will have a message for their globe-trotting daughter: We told you so.

"I had warned her," said Jack Adams. "I said that's a pretty lousy place for a single woman to be going, with so much unrest and what have you. And, sure enough, that's what happened."

Linda's mom, Mary Adams, generally approves of her daughter's wide-ranging travels. "She's smart to do it now if she's going to do it, because when you get my age you don't want to leave the house," she said.

Linda Adams joined her parents' business, distributing magazines and paperback books throughout Napa County, 20 years ago. "She worked long hours and she dedicated herself," said Mary Adams.

The family sold the business a few years back. "Now that she's out of it, there are places she wants to go and see," her mother said.

Refunds due

Adams booked her Uganda journey through Abercrombie and Kent International, a travel agency based in the Chicago suburb of Oakbrook. She'll be getting a full refund, said company spokeswoman Christa Brantsch.

Brantsch said the firm is calling its other Uganda-bound clients to tell them their trips are canceled.

"We've been in operation there since 1992," she said.

"People primarily go there for gorilla tracking."

But, said Brantsch, "we have temporarily ceased sending people out there." She said clients who had booked trips to Uganda are being offered safer alternatives.

Brantsch said Adams paid about $3,000 for five days in Uganda, not counting airfare.

Considering the outcome, Mary Adams doesn't think it was a great investment. "She had no business going there to see those dumb gorillas," said Linda's mother. "Who needs it?" &lt;